


Scars, Show Me All The Scars You Hide

by paperjamBipper



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Pines Family Feels, Post-Weirdmageddon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25369801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperjamBipper/pseuds/paperjamBipper
Summary: Ford and Mabel have a talk about blame, and how too much of it can cause the heart pain.Alternatively,Mabel tells Ford about her encounter with Bill prior to the start of Weirdmageddon.
Relationships: Ford Pines & Mabel Pines
Comments: 2
Kudos: 70





	Scars, Show Me All The Scars You Hide

Everything is peaceful. 

Ever since the town had been cleansed of any and all evidence that Weirdmageddon had happened at all, the small town of Gravity Falls seemed to sigh a breath of relief for the first time in decades. The birds were chirping away as the clouds from an earlier rainfall were beginning to clear. The whole atmosphere of the town still smelled of rainfall, and it seemed that half of the town’s population was out for a walk to enjoy it. Everyone in town seemed friendlier to each other, too. It was near-impossible to come across a sidewalk unoccupied by groups of people gathered in messy circles to talk. 

The Shack was booming with business, far more than the morning after Gideon’s arrest. Also in great contrast was the fact that those who were stopping by the shack had little interest in tours, rather to come in to meet the family that saved the town from utter destruction. Stan had already gotten far more than his fair share of aggressive handshakes and teary-eyed hugs from citizens who’d lived in town their whole lives, while Ford stood off to the side, watching them with a quiet fondness, finally understanding what his brother had meant when he told them the Shack had been a fundamental part of the town’s history. When they had first argued over the deed to the Shack, Ford had just thought he’d been exaggerating, but it was moments like those, as well as the times he would be mistaken for Stan in public, that really opened his eyes to how much the people of this town really loved the place, and, more importantly, how much these people loved his brother. 

Today might be the first lull the Shack’s seen in a solid month, and Stan had made the decision to close up shop to spend time with the family before Dipper and Mabel had to head off back home. They’d spent the entire early afternoon together, playing dumb games and watching dumb movies, and now, for the first time today, they were all off doing their own thing. It wouldn’t last, they knew, but they also couldn’t argue against the fact that sometimes comfortable silence was one of the warmest feelings on Earth. 

Stan’s taking a nap on the back porch, Dipper’s in the kitchen scribbling things down in a blank notebook Ford had gifted him when he was offered the apprenticeship, and Ford was down in his basement lab, cleaning up the last of the rubble of the portal he and Stan had taken baseball bats to the night prior. 

Mabel…. 

Mabel is pacing back and forth in the living room, stuck wondering why if everything is so peaceful and perfect, just like she’d dreamed things would be, that something still felt... _off_ to her. Not in the sense that she’d forgotten something, or that things _shouldn’t_ be all peachy keen, it’s more along the lines of something that’s wrong with _her_ specifically.

She knew it couldn’t be a lack of sleep, because she’d fallen asleep in Grunkle Stan’s lap during one of the movies earlier. It could be that she’s sad to be leaving in a week, she supposes, but no, they hadn’t been talking much about her and Dipper’s departure lately, and she’d already made both Stan and Ford pinky promise her that the two of them could spend the following summer in Gravity Falls, so that couldn’t be it either…

“Mabel?” Dipper asks, startling her out of her thoughts, and she freezes in her pacing. He’s carrying his notebook under one arm, and his favorite blue pen is poking out of his hair from behind his ear. Nerd. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know…” Mabel admitted, rubbing at her arm. “I know that everything’s all sunshine and rainbows now that Bill’s gone for good, but I don’t _feel_ like sunshine and rainbows”

“Oh, Mabel…” Dipper frowned, placing his book on the armrest of Stan’s chair. “Is it because we’re leaving so soon? I know Stan already promised us we could stay here whenever we needed, but I thought you missed Mom and Dad”

“I do miss them!” Mabel shot her arms in the air. “I miss everyone at home. But I don’t think that’s what’s bugging me so much”.

Dipper frowns, and takes a seat in Stan’s chair, indicating he wasn’t going to leave the room until he could figure out what was bugging her himself. “Well...what do you think it is?”

“I don’t know!” Mabel whined, bringing her hand to her forehead as if she had a bad headache. “I’m thrilled that everything’s okay, I’m thrilled that Stan and Ford are best friends again, and I’m thrilled that we get to come back next summer, but I...can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. I haven’t been able to since the morning Stan woke up with his memories intact” 

“Mabel, that was two days ago!”

“I know, I know…” Mabel begins pacing again. “But I just thought that it was just cause I was so stressed he was gonna relapse again, or that something _else_ terrible was gonna happen, or-”

The small _crunch_ of a piece of paper interrupts her before she can finish her train of thought, and when she looks down to see what she’d stepped on she realizes it’s an early draft of the invitation cards for her and Dipper’s birthday party.

Her face goes pale at the sight. 

“Mabel, are you okay?” Dipper stands to reach out for her shoulder. “You’re not looking too hot…”

“I know what it is” she says, before he can touch her, and he retracts his hand. 

“You do? Can you tell me?” 

Mabel takes a few looks around the room to make sure that they’re alone.

“Follow me,” she says, but then she grabs Dipper by the hand and runs up the stairs to their attic bedroom.

“Mabel, what’s happening?” Dipper asks her as she locks the room behind her. “You’re acting a lot like...me” 

“It’s all my fault”

“What? What’s all your fault?”

The concern in her brother’s tone makes her choke up for reasons she can’t describe. “Weirdmageddon”, she shutters. “It’s all my fault”.

“ _What?”_ Dipper’s voice squeaks, which makes Mabel flinch. “Mabel, don’t say that! Of course it’s not your fault!”

“Yes it is,” she mopes, and plops herself down onto her bed. “Bill came after me when I ran into the woods, and I gave him that weird snow-globe looking thing.” She buries her face in her pillow, but she doesn’t wait for her brother to respond before she keeps going. “It wasn’t out of anger, or anything, I swear. He possessed that Blendin guy and promised me an eternal summer in exchange, and I handed it over because I’m a big dummy dumb, and everyone got hurt because I thought I wanted time to freeze forever so we wouldn’t have to be apart” 

For a brief moment there’s silence, but then Dipper’s hand on her shoulder. When she pulls her face out of her pillow to look at him, it’s all wet and gooey. “Mabel, are you kidding? I thought the rift shattered in your backpack. I thought for sure it was because you tripped, and everything exploded out of your backpack. I thought you were a goner”. 

Mabel sniffles, but she doesn’t respond. 

“Mabel, your story is _so_ much better than the ones I was making up in my head. I mean, I wish Bill had never tracked you down at all, but I’m _so_ glad you weren’t hurt.” He pulls her into a hug. “Great Uncle Ford and I were just talking about this the other morning, Mabel. He was worried sick that he’d hurt you taking it by force” 

“You’re…” she stutters, returning the hug. “You’re not mad?” 

“Of course not” he shakes his head. “I meant what I said in Mabeland. Whatever happens, we get through it _together”._

She giggles and pulls away from the hug, wiping at her face with her sleeves. “But...what about Grunkle Ford?”

Dipper shakes his head. “You should tell him too. He’s gonna be understanding, Mabel, he already knows how much Bill had it out for us personally”

That’s...true, she supposes, shuttering at the memory of her and Dipper offering themselves up as bait so Bill wouldn’t kill their Grunkles. She stands to exit the room, gives her brother one more hug for good luck, and and repeats Dipper’s words to herself the entire way down the staircase and into the gift shop. The stairs to the basement are propped open, which she assumes is because Ford no longer feels he needs to keep its location a secret. She makes her way down slowly, partly out of nerves and partly to avoid spooking Ford.

 _He’ll understand,_ she says to herself one last time as she exits the elevator. Ford’s sitting at the work desk, and the view of the portal in the next room is blocked off with a curtain. He’s hunched over, just a little bit, and Mabel figures it’s probably because he’s writing something in one of the journals. It’s only as she approaches him that she realizes he’s not wearing his trench coat, because she can tell that he rolled the sleeves of his sweaters up to make for easier writing. 

“Grunkle Ford?” she asks, knocking lightly on the machine closest to her right in case calling his name isn’t enough to snap him out of his focus. 

“Mabel!” his response is cheery, and he places a bookmark on the page he’d been working on and closes the cover. “What brings you down here?” 

“Well, I...guess I wanted to talk to you about something”.

“Sure, anything” he grins, patting at his pant leg in invitation to come sit on his lap. Mabel sighs, tries to think for a moment about how she can place things lightly, and takes Ford up on his offer. She crawls up onto his lap, opens her mouth to speak, and freezes when she notices that his wrist is covered in cuts and blistering scars. A quick glance at the other wrist and she’s met with the same sight. 

“Grunkle Ford?” is all she can manage, and her eyes follow hers to the scars on her wrist. 

“Oh!” he replies, much cheerier than she’d expected him to, and rolls his sleeves back down. “I’m going to be fine, sweetie, those will heal in due time”.

“What happened to you?” she looks up at him with her signature puppy eyes. “How recent are these?” 

From her spot on his lap, Mabel can feel Ford’s chest rise and fall as he sighs quietly. “You have to promise me you won’t tell Stan,” he says, rubbing delicately at his wrist. Mabel nods silently, and his eyes fall to the ground to avoid eye contact with his niece.

“Bill did this to me. When he was demanding that I give him the codes to undo the bubble around the town, he chained me by my arms and legs and fried me until I talked. I’m so sorry that you had to come across them by accident, but, uh, I’m grateful that you saw them today, rather than earlier. _I_ nearly threw up when I saw them for the first time after I was freed”

Mabel’s breath hitches, and she’s tearing up. It’s getting harder and harder to convince herself that _It’s not your fault_ could be a true statement when everyone she cares about is getting hurt by it. Bill _fried_ him. Bill chained him up and _fried_ him, and if the scars on his wrists are just from the chains, she can’t even begin to imagine what the scars must look like under the rest of his sweater. He must be completely disfigured from the neck down, if she knows anything about Bill. He’d tried to kill her two other times prior to Weirdmageddon, but those were over _much_ less risky things than control over the whole universe.

She throws herself against Ford’s sweater in a fit of choked sobs, and his arms are around her before she can even finish processing that she’s crying again.

“There, there, Mabel” Ford’s voice is cool and collected, but tinged with sadness to see her break down like this for the second time in three days. He rubs gentle circles into her back, quietly shushing her sobs, and the tender gesture of it all just makes Mabel cry even harder. “It’s okay, Mabel. You’re okay. You’re safe. _I’m_ safe, thanks to you”. He gently pats her hair, and Mabel sniffles as she pulls away. Ford keeps his hand where it is, at the top of her head, and she hates how much of a grounding feeling it is. 

“It’s _not_ okay!” She yells, and more tears pour down her face. “You’re hurting! Bill could’ve _killed_ you!” she gasps for air. “If we had shown up just five minutes later than we did, you could’ve been a goner!” She takes his other wrist, which was still wrapped around her to prevent her from falling off of his lap, and rolls it up to reveal the identical scar he’d just covered up moments ago. “These look worse than the time I pulled a tray of cupcakes out of the oven with my bare hands cause I was too excited to wait for them! I thought I was never gonna feel anything ever again!” She cries. 

“Mabel, sweetie…” 

“No!” she cries. “I don’t deserve to be called that. It’s all my fault he hurt you.” Her sobs quiet as her body seems to double-whammy her and send her into a panic attack, trembling uncontrollably against Ford’s chest. “It’s my fault” 

There’s a gentle six-fingered hand on her cheek, and she looks up to warm brown eyes staring into hers with heartbroken worry. “It’s _not_ your fault, my dear, Bill and I have a really complicated history together. Nothing you could’ve done would’ve changed that”

“That’s exactly my point! Bill may not have acted any differently, but _I_ still could’ve!” 

“What do you mean?”

Mabel wipes away her tears with her wrist again.

“It’s my fault everything happened in the first place. I’m the reason Bill got his hands on the...uh...rift, I think Dipper called it” she sniffles. “Bill caught up to me when I was all upset in the woods about arguing with Dipper, and told me he could fix things if I gave it to him, and I-” 

She’s cut off by Ford’s hug around her tightening, like she just unlocked a set of keywords that’d make him never want to let go of her again.

“Mabel, I want you to listen to me very carefully”

She doesn’t say anything, but squeezes him in silent confirmation to let him know she’s still listening.

“Nothing that happened was your fault, okay? I need you to understand how genuine that statement is. It wouldn’t matter if Bill convinced you to smash the rift into the ground yourself. It wouldn’t matter if you handed it over without question, or if you shook his hand.”

“But-”

“Let me finish” he cuts her off, but the soft nature in his tone lets her know he isn’t upset. “Mabel, it doesn’t matter who said or did what because this is exactly how Bill liked to play his games. He knew you wouldn’t be thinking straight, he knew you wouldn’t question anything he asked you to do.” he reaches under his glasses to wipe at his own eyes. “He did the same thing to me when I was younger, Mabel. I called him my best friend. He convinced me to hang onto every word he ever said without giving them a second thought”

He pulls her away from the hug so he can look her in the eyes again. “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever encountered in any dimension, Mabel. Don’t blame yourself for the mistakes I made when I was younger. If there’s anyone that should be blamed for the whole ordeal besides Bill, it should be me.”

“Grunkle Ford, don’t say that!” 

He laughs quietly, bitterly. “I should have told you about the rift earlier, Mabel. I’m sorry I kept it a secret from you”

“It’s okay,” she replies. “I know that you were just trying to keep me safe. Stan had to keep a lot of things from me, too”.

“No kidding…” Ford’s voice drifts off, which makes Mabel painfully aware of the fact she was currently holding a conversation with one of said things. He shakes his head. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that pitting all of the blame on yourself isn’t going to do you any good.” He rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. “...Stan and I had to learn that one the hard way. If you focus too much on the idea that all you’ve done is hurt people, you miss out on all of the times you’ve done good for other people.”

He smiles warmly. 

“Dipper told me you were the one who stopped the portal from shutting down. I’m not sure I’d even still be alive if it weren’t for you. You’ve done so much good for the people you care about that anything else is nonexistent in comparison. You’re a wonderful person, Mabel, inside and out. If there ever were a person out there who truly was pure of heart, I can say in all honesty that I think it’d be you”.

Mabel’s on the verge of crying again. She throws herself at him in another hug, and he’s quick to hug her back.

“You’re a wonderful person too, Grunkle Ford. I don’t want _you_ to forget that either”.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear she could hear him sniffle at the remark.


End file.
